A Short Visit With Doyle Lawson

The Woodbutcher has been working around Carter Vintage Guitars (and banjos and mandolins and basses and…) for the better part of a month and has had a steady stream of people coming back picking up mandolins or getting them set up or having minor repairs done, including yours truly. Steve Gilchrist held hostage at the work bench…perfect. I was down yesterday picking up #02536 yesterday after another slight adjustment. I swear this thing is slicker than a minnow’s lips now. On the way back to the shop I spied the one and only Doyle Lawson in a ball cap, shades and sports windbreaker…in disguise…looking at guitars. I walked over and asked Doyle without introducing myself if he still played the guitar. But as is his usual style, when he recognized my face he smiled and struck up a conversation. He asked me what I was up to and I told him I had come to Carter’s to pick up my Gil from Steve. I asked Doyle was he down there to see Steve and he said he didn’t know he was there or that he was even in the US. He said that he’d met Steve years ago and I volunteered to reintroduce them. So we went gingerly between the rows of guitars and banjers (correct pronunciation) back to the repair room.

Steve was in between customers so we went on over. When I got Steve’s attention I said, “Steve, this is Mr. Lawson”. Steve told him right away where they’d met and what the function was. Doyle seemed delighted that Steve remembered that much. I just picked up my mandolin and went in the back room to bang on it and get out of the way. About 10-15 minutes later I came back and Steve had handed Doyle the mandolin that Steve’s been carrying around as “his” mandolin (you remember, his current mandolin) and they talked about it for a bit…”nice looking finish, do you like a radiused board, this mandolin is really light, etc”…Then A ‘23 Loar that Steve was working on came out of the case and Doyle laid into it. The man can still play his hindquarters off. I asked him if he was still writing tunes and he just chuckled and said, “All the time” and proceeded to play a really nice breakdown and one of the pretties waltzes I’ve heard in a while and something that had a big fat G# chord in it. Not your average hillbilly fare. He said those were the latest he had finished and had more in the works. Doyle played a few more numbers and put the Loar away but not before turning to me and saying, “Mike, me and you oughta get together sometime and record a bunch of tunes”. Well, I was flabbergasted of course, but the more I think about it the more I’m interested in the idea.

I guess what strikes me most about getting to talk to Doyle a few minutes was that he’ll talk to you. He’s never failed to say hello or kid around and his playing is still smart and slick, he plays music that sounds good on a mandolin and it shows a lot of forethought. “I still play pretty good” he says. Ahem. A bit more than “pretty good”. He plays a lot of the time as did Monroe and as far as I know so does Jesse McReynolds. It makes a huge difference in ability and creative energy and probably keeps a person’s life force strong. And being a nice guy doesn’t seem to hurt anybody’s feelings either.

Life is good. MC